


Revertere

by scintilla_misha



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Other, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla_misha/pseuds/scintilla_misha
Summary: The Head of the Department of Mysteries hated a lot of things, but the thing he hated the most was time traveling babies. They can ruin a lot of things, you see: tulips, relaxing Saturdays, paperwork timelines, and, of course, the universe as we know it.





	1. The Toddler in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Note: There are times when I ignore canon. It is my right and, dare I say, privilege to ignore canon. 
> 
> This story was written for a Potterotica monthly challenge. To learn more about the podcast Potterotica, click here: https://potteroticapodcast.com/ 
> 
> Disclaimer: All material that you recognize belong to the world of Harry Potter, created by J.K. Rowling.

He wore overalls.

The little blue kind that aren’t exactly denim but aren’t exactly cotton either. They were that kind of stain-resistant, endlessly practical fabric that was closer to canvas than anything else. These overalls had the distinction of being embroidered with several bumblebees on the bib and, even though there was some kind of stain dribbled down the front (milk, perhaps, or puke, even more likely), they were clean and cute. 

He wore these overalls over a plain, white onesie. On his feet, he wore small, dirty shoes: splattered with mud and fraying at the seams, they were the only thing about him that seemed distinctly, well, _old_. 

And even though he only stood about 30 inches tall, he bore a distinct and, honestly, disturbing resemblance to Harry Potter. The future Harry Potter, that is. He had the same lightning scar—somehow fresher, on this toddler, his smooth, tiny forehead emblazoned with the great, red mark—and the same bright green eyes, like the scales of a common garden snake. His hair stood straight up: thick and extremely dark, never falling in front of his eyes. And more than anything, there was the distinct air about him that suggested he could or would do anything at any moment, whether it was dive-bomb into a fountain or eat a bumblebee. 

He zoomed around the garden, sticking his chubby hands into flower beds, ripping up the just blooming tulips, and splashing into a bird bath. If you asked him (and although he said a few somewhat distinct words, asking him would be a practice in frustration), he would not have been able to tell you where he was even if he _had_ had the words for it. 

He somehow managed to be both the most noticeable thing in the great garden, with the pristine rose bushes and cobblestoned paths preserved from the Victorian and Edwardian traditions of walking in circles every single day, and the least noticeable thing. The only person who really noticed him at first was a house elf named Mona, but Mona had been told to stay quiet and, as such, was unable to mention such an odd occurrence. 


	2. The Saturday

The war had changed everything for nearly everyone. And not that Draco Malfoy particularly cared about anyone outside of his own sphere (although he would never admit this, because he was, if nothing else, self aware), he felt that particularly the war had only improved everything. 

_Yes_ , he had to remind himself, his father _was_ in prison and his mother _did_ spend the vast majority of her time traipsing through Europe and trying to pretend that she wasn’t married to an absolute psychopath. And _yes_ , one of his best friends was dead and _yes,_ even though he escaped time in Azkaban due to his age he was still considered an absolute traitor and blah blah blah… It was all so much. Things were better. Who could deny it? 

If nothing else, Draco Malfoy knew he still had it all: the manor (even though the Malfoy fortunes were _distinctly_ reduced, thanks in no small part to his mother), his name, and his good looks. 

Yes, on this particular Saturday, Draco Malfoy was feeling exceptionally confident. (Not that he ever felt anything other than confident, he would like to remind you.) He had planned a relaxing Saturday with the only two people left in the world he still cared about: Blaise Zabini (who remained as rich as ever postwar, the lucky duck) and Theodore Nott. 

There was excellent French wine to drink, courtesy of his mother’s current station in the south of France, where the air seemed to sooth her fears and anxieties regarding her husband’s current position in the North Sea. There was excellent food to eat, courtesy of the house elves who Draco had silenced early in the morning. There was Quidditch to play. There were cigars to smoke. There was talk to be had. 

Yes, Draco though, it was a particularly good day to relax. To enjoy himself. 

The bloody war was done, he thought, so it needed to stop spoiling his good mood, already. 

 

***

 

If you asked Blaise (and no one ever really thought to ask Blaise, although he’d probably be the one to tell you the closest thing to the truth), he would tell you that he couldn’t _really_ remember what lead to them finding the toddler in the gardens—he had been drinking rather heavily until that moment after all—but he had the distinct impression that it started with a crash from outside and the immediate smell of wet grass. 

If you asked Theodore, he would say that he noticed the toddler in the garden first. That he had stood on a veranda, smoking a particularly fine cigar courtesy of the Malfoy Manor basement, which was a veritable treasure trove of pleasures, and when he looked down, he saw a tiny, mud-smeared toddler. 

And if you asked Draco (and Draco would argue that he absolutely should be the only one asked because it was his home and his gardens), _he_ was the one who noticed the toddler first. But only because he was so frustrated about his house elves: he couldn’t get a single one of them to speak to him and, though he had the distinct feeling that he had told them they couldn’t speak, he couldn’t exactly remember how to reverse this order. He had stomped out the French doors to the garden and immediately spotted very small footprints. And even though these footprints were those of shoes, he thought perhaps they were a wayward house elf’s footprints and damn if he didn’t feel like kicking something. He had followed them, he would say, and discovered the little boy, in his blue overalls and broken black-framed glasses, grinning underneath an apple tree. 

All three, however, would agree with what happened next, however. The toddler was chased inside—most likely by Draco, enraged that all the tulips were torn up—and then found standing atop the antique sideboard in the dining room, positively gleeful and cackling up a storm. While Draco tried to pull the toddler down without destroying multiple priceless Malfoy heirlooms, Blaise looked at Theodore in the doorway and said, “Is that bloody Harry Potter?” 

It was a mere 15 seconds later that the Aurors burst into the room. 


	3. The Aurors

It started, in the Auror headquarters, with a small, rather insignificant alarm. 

In the station manned by Jason Weiss, a rather nondescript young man near the end of his shift, a little red bulb began to blink. This bulb often corresponded to incidences of strong magic in underage witches and wizards. Usually (speaking generally, that was, Jason would like to remind you), this bulb only really flashed when magic was noticed by Muggles. Sometimes, it was a perfectly ordinary occurrence: a child who had been marked as Potentially Magical had performed another feat of magic around their parents, or teachers, or even friends. These occurrences were recorded and a single Auror would be sent out to modify a memory or plant a memory. And other times, it was a particularly _un_ ordinary occurrence… as Jason discovered on this day. 

He alerted his superiors and they traced the signal to Malfoy Manor. This was truly the last place that he expected the magic to be traced to; after all, Malfoy Manor was _not_ a Muggle home. 

“Well, isn’t that weird?” Auror Weasley asked, leaning across the small cubicle desk to look at the flashing bulb and subsequent magical trace. 

“What do you think Malfoy’s doing?” Auror Potter asked, leaning on the wall of the cubicle. 

“Don’t do that, please,” Jason said, quietly. “The wall will fall down.”

Harry Potter ignored him.

“I think we should go,” Potter said. He pushed off the wall (Jason watched it wobble, rather nervously) and stood for a moment adjusting his robes. Ron Weasley smiled, standing up straight as well. 

“Yeah?” Weasley asked. 

Potter shrugged. “I just think it’s worth checking out.” They shared a look (Jason would later tell this to his coworkers, feeling rather exasperated) and then set off together.

 

***

 

But before they could leave, they were caught by _another_ monitor: little Aoife Murray, in her cubicle three down from Jason’s.

“Harry?” she called, in her airy little voice. She looked much like a bird: a head of red hair, large blue eyes, and skin as pale and translucent as milk. “Did I hear you say Malfoy Manor?” 

Aoife Murray was a specialist in many things, but time travel was one of them. Her monitoring station specifically dealt with issues of time. The thing about Wizards was they were capable of all kinds of feats—and controlling people who attempted to do things that could, well, kill everyone on earth at once in a spectacularly painful way was extremely difficult. Stopping people from doing other damaging things like traveling through time and destroying either themselves or their family or, oh, the entire peace of the Wizarding world of Great Britain and even perhaps Europe… well, that was even more challenging. 

“Yes, Oofa?” Harry replied. 

“Aoife,” she corrected. “Like… Eva.” 

“Whatever,” Harry responded. He approached her cubicle and noticed she too had a little red, flashing bulb. “What’s that?” 

“I also traced a magical disturbance to the Malfoy residence,” she said, chirpily. Behind Harry, Ron moved impatiently from foot to foot. “But this time it is in relation to time. Traveling through time, to be clear.” 

“Time turners are _gone_ , Oofa,” Ron called. 

“Aoife,” she said again. “And they are gone _now_ but they aren’t gone in the _past_ , I’ve explained this. And there are other ways to travel through time. A time turner isn’t able to travel through 19 years of time, at least a standard one isn’t. But this incident… it’s at least 18 or 19 years worth of time travel.” 

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin when Aoife looked up at him. Normally, she was a paragon of calm: nothing really riled her up, being as adept at understanding the terribly difficult notion of time, and time travel, and time-related magic… but she looked nervous. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like how nervous she looked. 

“They’re related,” she finally said. “The incident of a young witch or wizard bringing attention to magic around Muggles and this time incident, both at Malfoy Manor? Related.” 

“So we should go now?” Harry asked, rather unsurely. 

Aoife pursed her lips. “You need to take more than just yourselves. This needs escalated. The two of you know _nothing_ about time magic.” 

“So you want to go?” Ron asked, impatiently. 

Aoife rolled her eyes. “Absolutely, but you also need to contact the Department of Mysteries immediately.” 

 

***

 

All Regina Parsons wanted to do was finish her shift at the Department of Mysteries (more like the Department of Boredom, she thought, yawning at her desk and shifting through piles upon piles of paperwork on behalf of her boss) and go on a date with the girl she’d met at a club last week. Was it too much to ask? 

She knew it wasn’t good the moment Aurors Potter and Weasley walked in. They’d been bad news for years, even if they were the golden boys of the Auror department and, honestly, she thought, even though they did defeat Voldemort, they were so… she wanted to groan out loud, but her boss hated any noises that weren’t perfectly necessary. She knew she would have to send a frantic owl to Veronica and cancel their date and who knows when she would ever be able to ask her out again, especially after canceling last minute… 

“Reg, we need the Boss Man,” Harry said, thumping his fist down on her desk. She hated that. She always hated that. Mostly because her succulent, a temperamental little thing named Ralf, hated thumping sounds. 

“He’s out,” she sniffed. 

“Out?” Harry asked. “What do you mean _out_? Do you people ever go _out_?” 

Reggie narrowed her eyes and slowly tilted her head up at Harry Potter. Harry _fucking_ Potter. 

“Want to rephrase that?” Reggie asked. 

“Sorry,” Harry grimaced. “I meant, isn’t he supposed to be here, like, always?” 

“I believe he is a human,” Reggie said, suddenly thoughtful. She tilted her head up and put her pencil under her chin. “Yes, I believe he eats and sleeps and shits just like you do, except I think his shit comes out his butthole, not his mouth, unlike your unfortunate case.” 

“Burn,” Ron whispered. 

“Ok, you proved your point,” Harry said. “We need him, it’s urgent, a matter of time and space and _Malfoy Manor_.” Harry said it like he’d said lots of things when he was at school, almost always in relation to Draco Malfoy. Reggie sat up a little straighter. 

“Well, matters of time and space? I supposed he’ll see you,” Reggie said. She pressed the button on her desk and 10 seconds later, her boss (a man in a dark hat and robes so dark they almost seemed to be a _new_ color of black) appeared at his door. (The thing about Boss Man, that you must remember, was that his features seemed to shift. Boss Man never admitted if this was magical or not, but Harry could never _quite_ remember what he looked like—and neither could anyone else. You just knew him if you saw him.) 

“You liar,” Harry said. 

Reggie shrugged and watched the Aurors step into his office. Then, the moment the door snapped shut, she thumped her head down onto her desk. Ralf, as always, squirmed. 

 

***

 

It was Ron, Harry, Boss Man, Regina, and Aoife who descended on Malfoy Manor. 

They found tiny, muddy footprints leading from French doors in the parlor to the dining room, where the three suspects stood, frozen thanks to several well-placed Freezing Spells. They also found the Toddler, covered in mud and gleefully trying to climb down from the sideboard while Draco looked on, looking totally and utterly distressed. 

“Ok, who is this baby?” Ron asked. Being the closest, he scooped the Toddler up by his armpits, swinging him around once. “You think they stole him?” He narrowed his eyes. “You sick _fuck_ ,” he added, right into Draco’s face. 

Aoife approached, holding out her wand and casting a few spells to check the Toddler. “No,” she said. She sighed. “Ah, shit, it’s a classic.” 

“Oh fuck,” Boss Man said. 

“I hate time traveling babies,” Reggie whispered. She let her head roll back until she looked straight up at the ceiling, her dark, curly hair cascading down her back. 

“Time traveling babies?” Harry asked. 

“This baby is from the future?” Ron asked, lifting the Toddler higher. The Toddler kicked his feet happily. It was then, of course, that Ron noticed the Toddler’s forehead. And when he noticed the Toddler’s forehead, with the dark, red scar shaped like a lightning bolt, he promptly dropped said toddler. 

It was Aoife who managed to catch him with a quick spell, just as Boss Man started unfreezing the three suspects in the room. 

“What’d you do that for?” Aoife asked. She grabbed the Toddler out of the air and pulled him to her chest. He snuggled in, putting his little head on her shoulder and closing his eyes, as if sighing in relief. 

“His forehead!” Ron said. “He’s got a scar! He’s got _his_ scar!” He pointed at Harry. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Boss Man said. 


	4. Magical Instances of Time Traveling Babies

Boss Man liked to say that he only hated three things about his job: not being able to tell any of his coworkers or colleagues at the Ministry of Magic his real name, lest it was used against him in the future; the Ministry of Magic cafeteria food; and time traveling babies. 

In his time at the Department of Ministries, he had only had to deal, personally, with four time traveling babies, not including the time traveling Harry Potter baby, which was a whole _other_ beast. But those four time traveling babies ranked _pretty_ high on his “I would rather never experience this ever, ever again” list. His predecessor had not thought much differently and had told Boss Man, at least 100 times, that he wished they could find a way to stop babies from fucking time traveling, but doing so would almost certainly turn all magical babies into squibs. 

And if it came down to an inconvenient time traveling baby or forcing the magical world into extinction, well, Boss Man certainly agreed. 

But fuck, he hated time traveling babies. Maybe, he thought, the magical world wasn’t worth all the time traveling fucking _babies_. 

His first time traveling baby happened when he was just new to the Department of Mysteries. Toddlers were generally easier to spot than, say, newborns who managed to break the confines of time… but in that first case, it was a newborn from not just 10 years ago, but 1,000 years ago. A shock to say the least. The very next time traveling baby he handled was from 45 years in the future. 

Needless to say, both of those babies were returned in one piece and, hopefully, no ill consequences. Not that Boss Man would ever be able to tell. Aoife had a better handle on these things than he did, but he was pretty sure none of them would _know_. 

A time traveling baby was one thing. A time traveling _Harry Potter_ was entirely different. A time traveling Harry Potter wasn’t just an inconvenience. Oh, no no, a time traveling Harry Potter baby was… he had to sit down into a dining room chair, surrounded by a Malfoy, a Zabini, a Nott, two Aurors, essentially two secretaries (fine witches, though they were), and _fucking Harry Potter from the past._

“What do we do, Boss Man?” Reggie asked. 

He knew she knew the plan—she always knew the plan, Reggie _was_ the one with all the plans. But he knew what his face looked like: blank, like a mask. And Draco Malfoy was looking pretty green around the gills.

“Send him back,” Boss Man said. He gathered his wits and stood up. “Oooh, this is not gonna be fun. If we fuck this up—“

Reggie grabbed his shoulder. “We won’t fuck this up!” She smiled, trying to soothe him. “We’ve done this, what, four times in the last four years? We haven’t fucked up once!” 

“This is bigger than that though,” Boss Man said. “Although I appreciate your confidence and I will include that in your next review.” He smiled in a way that was both friendly, joking, and extremely sinister (he couldn’t really help it, you must remember; that’s just what Boss Man’s face looked like). 

Reggie made a sound not unlike a fart with her lips and turned to the rest of the group. 

“Can someone explain what’s going on?” Draco asked. Suddenly, he transformed from the rather nauseous looking young man they had encountered in the last five minutes and become the figure they had all either known or heard about. He put his hands on his hips. “Frankly, I want this baby, whoever the fuck it is, out of my house. It’s made an absolute mess! Look at that sideboard!” He held out his hand then, in frustration. (And it was absolutely true that the sideboard was a horrible mess, absolutely covered in tiny, muddy footprints.) 

“Oh, god, no, not the sideboard,” Ron said in mock horror before rolling his eyes. 

“Ok, but… time traveling babies?” Harry asked. “And… that’s me?” 

Harry looked at the toddler version of himself. The Toddler cooed in Aoife’s arm as she continued performing spells on him, which she murmured almost without sound. A lot of green and purple curlicues of light were coming from both her wand _and_ the Toddler but it didn’t seem… harmful. 

“Time traveling babies is a magical phenomena,” Reggie started after clearing her throat, “that we see at least once a year. All magical people have the ability to perform magic that can allow them to travel through time. This magic is strictly prohibited and is not taught. All mentions of it in books have been destroyed _or_ reserved in the Department of Mysteries. However, it is quite common for young children to do this accidentally. It usually stops around age 2.”

“Wait, if this happens once a year, then how is it not _known_?” Blaise asked. 

“What do you think, Zabini?” Theodore interjected. He gave Blaise a look as if he was absolutely bonkers. “They modify people’s memories, how thick can you be?” 

“Who are you calling thick?” Blaise asked. “It’s just a simple question—“

“It’s a _stupid_ question,” Theodore snapped. 

“There is a time traveling baby in front of us, I’m allowed to ask some stupid question,” Blaise retorted. And before it could turn into a fully fledged fight, Boss Man froze both of them. 

“Needless to say, this common but extremely inconvenient occurrence is one of my least favorite parts of my job,” Boss Man said. “And yes, I will be modifying these three buffoons’ memories before the day is done.” He sighed. “Alright, let’s get this over with.” 


	5. The Solution

“You were a cute baby,” Ron said. They stood in the garden of the Malfoy Manor, as close to the Toddler’s origin point as they could approximate (thanks to a few handy spells by Aoife, who was rapidly using a Quick Quotes Quill to record all of her notes). 

“This is absolutely fascinating,” Aoife said. It was her _first_ time traveling baby she had been allowed to handle solo. And it was _Harry Potter_.

“You would be, Oofa,” Harry replied. 

“It’s Aoife, like Eva,” she repeated for probably the 500,000th time in her life. 

“Whatever.” Harry shrugged. 

The Toddler stood in the grass, watching Reggie draw shapes using her wand. He reached out his chubby hands to them, as she drew a giraffe that briefly ran towards him, making him giggle, and then a lion, which let out a tiny, realistic roar. 

“I hate to send him back there,” Harry said. “Myself. I hate to send myself back there.” 

Ron blinked and, for a moment, he thought he saw something in Harry’s eyes that was… he looked away. Uncomfortable. Harry blinked and it was gone. He knew where to draw the line. Even though he was a new Auror, he still knew: he had to send the Toddler back, he had to let him be sent back, even though he knew what awaited him. 

The thing that shocked him, really, was how happy the Toddler was. How cared for. His clothes were clean and… Harry leaned closer, as the Toddler grabbed at a pelican from Reggie’s wand, to inspect the overalls. Yes, they were new. Name brand. And definitely not Dudley’s size, even toddler Dudley was twice Harry’s size. Yes, the Toddler was cared for—and Harry couldn’t help but wonder what happened. 

“This happened,” Aoife said, quietly, as if Harry had been speaking aloud and not thinking inside his own head. She touched Harry’s forearm. “I asked Jason. You didn’t show any signs of magic until you were about 18 months old. That’s how old this little guy is. This was your first sign of magic, at least in front of the Muggles.” She smiled a little, as if to apologize, and so Harry turned away. 

“We should start now,” Boss Man said. 

Reggie stood up. “This is a big one,” she sighed. She looked over her shoulder at Harry. “Ron’s right though—you were a cute little bugger.” She scrunched up her nose and smiled. 

 

***

 

The process for sending a time traveling baby back in time is as follows: 

1) Locate the baby

2) Approximate the location where the baby landed after traveling through time

3) Surround the baby with as many witches and wizards as possible 

4) At once, say the spell “ _Praeterita Redire_ ” 

5) Hope for the best. 

No one that stood around the Toddler version of Harry Potter really liked the last step. _Hope for the best_? Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the boy who held a piece of Voldemort’s very soul inside of him, the boy who would cast _Expelliarmus_ and kill Voldemort (thus preserving his own soul)… they were trusting that the spell would work and he would land, 10 seconds after his time traveling adventure began, and hopefully not repeat it and set them into the worst time traveling loop in the world. They had to trust that a spell would do that, without them knowing it. Because if it didn’t work, it would be over. If they sent Harry to the wrong time, or worse, the wrong _place_ , they would essentially disappear. The word would cease to exist. 

Or, as Aoife explained, a hole would be torn in the time-space continuum and it would be all over for everyone and everything. 

“So have confidence, when you say it,” Aoife said, smiling. 

“We have done it,” Harry said. “If this is the thing that made the Dursleys change, then, surely, it’s already happened?” 

“Yes,” Aoife said. “But, time is flexible. We could fuck this up.” 

“But it’s already happened,” Ron said. 

“But it hasn’t,” Aoife said, sounding exasperated. 

“But it has, hasn’t it?” Blaise asked. 

“It hasn’t,” Aoife repeated. 

“You just said…” Draco started. 

“Shut up! You're all doing my fucking head in,” Reggie snapped. The Toddler had gotten into a seated position, looking around at them expectantly, as if they were about to put on a puppet show for them. 

“On the count of three,” Boss Man said. “You all remember the spell?” 

“Yes,” almost everyone said in sequence. 

“Ok, 1… 2…” Boss Man counted. The Toddler clapped his hands and giggled. The Toddler did not hear the 3 come (not that he knew, really, what a 3 was); all he saw was brilliant yellow light. And then, he was home: back in the little, sunny living room of 4 Privet Drive, his aunt and uncle looking at him with their eyes wide and startled. 


	6. The Aftermath

Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott ended up not getting their memories modified. After assuring Boss Man that they would take the secret about Harry Potter to the grave, and promising to please never ever attempt time travel on their own, they were left to clean up the Malfoy Manor dining room on their own. Not that they did it. 

Rather, Draco happened to remember his exact wording to the house elves, enabling him to get them to talk again and was thus able to interrogate them as to _why_ they didn’t alert him to the presence of a time traveling baby in his garden. He then ordered them to clean the dining room and replant all the tulips before his mother happened to sense their destruction across the English Channel. 

The three young men then returned to the parlor, where they proceeded to get sloppily drunk on expensive French wine. 

 

***

 

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley returned to their shared apartment that evening. They split a takeaway together, lounging on the couch while Hermione Granger sat in the cozy recliner beside them. After a while, they told her about their day: even though they weren’t supposed to tell her about time travel, they told her anyway. They never kept secrets from Hermione Granger and, plus, Hermione was trustworthy. She was, needless to say, shocked that there was an element of magic that had been kept from her. And of course, she demanded to know every single detail of what had happened. 

When Harry Potter went to bed that night, he lied awake for a very long time. It was no use regretting what had to be done. His past self had to live his childhood, exactly as he had, in order to become the man he was. He shifted uncomfortably in bed, staring up at the ceiling. 

He both was and was not that little boy: 18 years separated them. And yet, even though he knew what he knew, even though Aoife had told him that the child Harry Potter _had_ to go back, _had_ to live that life, because if he didn’t, it would jeopardize not just the magical world, but the entirety of existence… he still thought, if Boss Man hadn’t been there, he would not have done it. 

 

***

 

Reggie made it to her date. She even had time to stop at home and take a shower, water her at-home succulent (Charles, a rather spiny little thing who was much less jumpy than Ralf), and smoke a quick cigarette. As she did, standing in her kitchen window, watching the sun set over London, she couldn’t help but think of little Harry Potter. Her eyes welled at the thought of it: to know Harry Potter, after the war, was one thing. But to see the child that would become the man—before the child had really experienced everything he would… and to bring that child a moment of joy, well, it was a lot for one person. 

Regina snuffed out her cigarette and grabbed her coat. It didn’t really matter, she supposed, in the end, but she was glad that the Toddler got a few moments of joy. And she hoped, wherever he was now, he knew that they all needed him. 

 

***

 

Jason Weiss cleaned up his station, as always, and carefully filed all his Incident Reports into the filing cabinet. He waited anxiously for Aoife or, even better, Harry and Ron to return, but he didn’t catch them. Instead, he put on his coat and said goodbye to the others filtering in for the evening shift at the monitoring stations. As he made his way to the Atrium to Apparate home, he was sure he saw Aoife through the crowd—but he could never be sure with Aoife. 

 

***

 

Boss Man returned home to his nondescript little home in a nondescript little coastal town. It was not the type of place that anyone would suspect the head of the Department of Mysteries to live in, but it was his type of place and that was what mattered. It was a cozy little cottage with a view of the cliffside; ivy traveled up the windows and the doorframe, the azaleas outside flourished, and while the lawn needed a good clipping, it was lush and green. Boss Man saw none of these things though, as he had a job to do. 

He found the book he kept behind his desk in the little room that overlooked the sea. Carefully, he found the page that was marked “TIME TRAVELING BABIES” and made a note. Underneath the four previous babies he had returned to their rightful times, he wrote “HARRY FUCKING POTTER, PAIN IN MY ASS FOR ETERNITY.” 

 

***

 

Aoife Murray returned to her station too. In her little cubicle, she yawned and stretched, turning on the light above her. 

“Aoife, your shift is over, babe,” her coworker, Patricia, called as the others started to leave, wearing their coats and carrying their bags. Ready for Sunday, it seemed. 

“I have an incident report to fill out,” Aoife called. “Shouldn’t take me longer than an hour of overtime.” Patricia made a sad face at her, as if she was apologizing—but Aoife didn’t really mind. She hadn’t wanted to go to drinks with the girls anyway. 

She filled out the incident report. She wrote down all the details she could remember: the overalls that baby Harry Potter wore, the little shoes, the tiny glasses that were so similar to the ones he still wore. She wrote that they had successfully completed the spell. She filed the report, placing it onto the bosses desk in a red folder (URGENT stamped in dark black across the front) and returned to her desk. 

She packed her things and left, making her way to the Atrium to Apparate to her own apartment. 

Aoife was just one in a long line of witches dedicated to monitoring and preserving the magic and knowledge surrounding time travel. She had known, for at least a little while, that she played a small role in the defeat of Voldemort. 

As she settled down to a dinner of tea and toast, she felt quite content. Yes, sending a time traveling baby back to where they belong was a good feeling, even if the baby was just some anonymous little thing discovered on the beach… but to send back Harry Potter and ensure that he defeats the Dark Lord? The feeling was priceless. 


End file.
